


Haptic Part 1

by oldcoyote (contrawise)



Series: Displacement Verse [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Blind Character, Crossover Pairings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:25:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrawise/pseuds/oldcoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With no light or colour or shapes to hold them together, people become just pieces; fragments of sound and touch. Steve wants more than anything for Blaine to be whole. Part three of the Displacement Verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haptic Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU Avengers/Glee crossover follows movie!Steve, who was frozen in late 1944 (age 26) and woke up in 2011, and an alternate Blaine, who’s 24 at the present day and lives in NYC. Set post-Avengers.

There was a body in Steve’s bed that was not his own; warm and compact, soft and firm all at once. The rise and fall of a bare chest, tan-skinned and supple, kept drawing his eyes back to the bed frame. 

He didn’t know how to move, how to get up from his chair - how to do anything but stare at the man strewn across his pillows and blankets, so sweetly asleep. Like he’d slept there a hundred times before. Like that bed had always held more than one person.

But it hadn’t.

He swallowed roughly, an audible gulp on the warm night air, his eyes darting between the soft flutter of the sheets under the pedestal fan and the flash of Blaine’s throat as he breathed deeply.

Steve watched, unmoving.

There was a man in his bed.

*

**2 Weeks Earlier**

Steve opened his eyes to perfect darkness.

It took a moment for the memories to come rising up to the surface; the awareness of another attack on the city, of fire and fighting and a hand reaching out for him.

Blaine’s hand.

He was with Blaine when he got the call to suit up, he remembered. This time, like the last time, he kissed his boyfriend goodbye - a quick press of his lips to Blaine’s - before he ran for the elevator. He thought he felt a hand ghost behind him, reaching out.

Three months ago, Blaine was just a man in a bar, playing a song he used to know. A man in an elevator, covered in his blood. 

Two months ago, he was the first person Steve had ever kissed on a street corner, the first person Steve had truly _kissed_. It wasn’t a shock, or even a welcome surprise - this time, this kiss, was a fixed event in time and space around which everything else seemed to orbit. He remembered the taste of Blaine, the weight of him in his hands. He remembered how he’d felt like he’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his life before that moment.

One month ago, Blaine was the first person in his new world that Steve told about the serum, who he was, and where he really came from. 

But that day, Blaine was just another person Steve left behind.

Under a blanket of impenetrable darkness, he came to full consciousness, trying to recall the attack itself. There was gunfire, and rows of cars blowing sky-high. He remembered white-hot flames, then just a flash of red and gold.

“Welcome back, Captain.”

Steve sucked in a sharp breath at the sound of a woman’s voice, too close for comfort, the source all but invisible in the black. “Who’s there?”

“It’s alright,” she said. 

Slowly, he began to tune in to the sounds all around him: the beeping of medical machines and the soft _tink-tink_ of metal against metal. He tried to move and felt a hand come down gently on his arm. It took him a moment in his disorientation to understand that he was lying down.

“Where am I?” he asked, squinting to try and see her face amidst the thick shadows. The skin around his eyes felt too tight.

“Captain Rogers, do you recognise my voice?”

It only took a moment. 

“Agent Hill,” he said, trying to sit up. “What happened, where are we? We need to get some light in here.”

“Captain,” Maria began again. “The lights are on.”

He froze, propped on his elbows on what he now realised was a hospital bed. 

“You took a direct hit, right off an explosion,” she explained, her voice firm and businesslike.  The mechanism of his bed buzzed below him as the backrest rose up while she spoke. “Mr. Stark was able to get you out, and get you here. You’re back at SHIELD, you’ve been unconscious for two days. The doctors insist that, given your… pre-existing physical condition, you should heal fully in two to three weeks.”

Steve wet his lips, considering her words and pushing down the fear that rose in his chest. His voice was hard-edged and even when he spoke again. 

“Is it permanent?”

“No,” she said immediately. He could hear the clip of her boots on the floor as she stood up. “As I said, you’ll be back to normal - including your sight - in a few weeks.”

His eyes narrowed in confusion, even with nothing to look at. “No disrespect, Ms. Hill, but…”

“Why am _I_ telling you this?”

He gave her a slight nod.

“Fury insisted. He said you’d need to hear a voice that you… _trust_. When you woke up.”

“He’s right,” Steve agreed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You know, I’d shoot anybody else if they called me that,” she said, amused.

The edge of his mouth curled into the barest smile. 

“I know, ma’am.”

*

The day he went home, five days after the attack, Steve walked through his front door with a cane in one hand and a personal care nurse gripping tightly to the other.

He’d learned quickly that being blind broke people down into fractured pieces, and he had to concentrate to keep them together in his mind. Usually, the pieces were made up of everything that felt real; a voice, and a hand - sometimes two, if they were holding on to his arm or helping him bathe - and he had to fill in the rest of them in his mind. If he didn’t, all people were anymore were fragments with no light or colour or shapes to hold them together.

The more he came to realise it, the more it made his heart feel heavy in his chest, thumping along too slowly. The one phone call he’d ached for, that he’d been waiting on for the last five days, was going to be as much a curse as it would be a blessing.

The only thing worse than not seeing Blaine was the reality of Blaine being right in front of him, and completely out of reach.

Angela (his nurse) had closed the door behind them, and Steve lingered on the spot, waiting for a rush that never came. The sense of home; the familiar smell, the sound of the refrigerator rumbling from the kitchen - even the passing cars below his windows - all of it _should_ hit him right away, the doctors had assured him. Comfort. Familiarity. Home.

The sounds were there, the building smelled the same, but somehow it was just like trading one hospital for another.

When she helped him into his chair by the window, he thanked her again (he thanked her often) and listened to the clicking of her kitten heels on the linoleum as she made him lunch. 

It wasn’t until he’d finished eating that she told him there was a new _remote control_ (he’d heard the term before, and tried to picture what she was talking about) on his desk with a bow on it and a note written out to “The Star-Spangled Candy Striper”, which she assumed was for her. 

“It just says press play,” she told him.

“Please,” he said.

The voice that seemed to come from all around him was unmistakably, irritatingly familiar.

“Well if it isn’t Stevie Wonder. Captain Dodgers? No. It'll come to me, I'll keep you posted, because I know you’re currently telling your nurse that you didn’t get either of those references, but for now,” Tony’s pre-recorded voice cockily announced, “welcome to your new voice-activated apartment. Audio weather reports, news reports, sport updates, phone calls - you name it - are just a simple _oral_ command away. _”_  

Steve rolled his eyes purely out of habit.

“It’s linked to your cell, and you have wireless now. Not radio, _Internet_ , that thing we talked about. You remember, when I explained the complexities of worldwide wireless networking and you stared blankly at me? Just - think of it like the good old-fashioned dirty Roadshow films of yore, right in the comfort of your own home.”

Steve buried his face in his hands as Tony’s recording continued.

“It should make things a little easier while you wait for your super boy-scout powers to grow back. Ciao.”

“Joking - he’s joking,” Steve rushed to explain, glad for the first time that he couldn’t see the look on his companion’s face.

 Angela simply chuckled. “Mr. Stark certainly has a flare for comedy.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it that,” Steve said, reminding himself to locate and injure Tony Stark when he got his eyesight back. “But yes. He does.”

*

He waited until Angela was leaving for the night to ask her to charge his cell phone - he knew it was still in the pocket of his brown leather jacket, slung over the back of his usual chair and likely long since out of power. 

The last noises he heard were her soft ‘good night’, the chirp of his phone springing to life, and the faint _ker-thunk_ of the door as she went out, before the the low and distant rumble of the city was all that remained.

He knew the voice system would call her if he asked, if he needed help through the night, but he’d refused to accept any more help than one day-shift nurse. Any more and it felt too much like the days before the serum; when he’d spent weeks under the care of hospital staff for this illness or that one, always sick, always invisible in a sea of strangers.

And he wanted to make this call alone.

“Can I make a telephone call?” he asked the system, feeling awkward for talking to thin air.

“Good evening, Sir,” it replied in a slightly robotic British accent. “Accessing your cell phone. You have eight missed calls and six messages.”

Steve rocked back in his seat, hand reaching for his cane as he eased himself to his feet. “Can you play the messages, please?”

Suddenly, it wasn’t the strange machine’s voice echoing through the rooms of his little New York apartment, but one far warmer and wonderfully familiar.

“Steve, it’s Blaine. I saw the footage from the attack on the news, you - you usually call me after. Are you okay? Please call me back, when you can.”

A loud beep separated each message, and Steve listened as he made his way to the bedroom, guiding himself along with one hand on his cane and the other on the wall.

“Steve. It’s me again. Can… god, I don’t want to sound like that guy, you know? I don’t want to… Can you call me?”

He reached his bed, and eased himself down to sit on the edge.

“Steve, it’s Blaine. Again. It’s been a day now, I just, I’m kinda freaking out here, there’s nothing on the news. Please call.”

Steve’s heart sank in his chest as with each message that played, the fear in Blaine’s voice slowly turned to resignation.

“It’s me. I figure it’d be all over the news. It’d have to be, wouldn’t it? If you were, I mean… If you’d…” Blaine’s voice grew tight, and there was a soft huff of breath. “God, I sound ridiculous. We’ve only been… _together_ for… I must sound insane. I’m sorry. Call me when you can. If you want to, I mean.”

 _Beep_.

“Hey, it’s Blaine. Look, I’m sorry, I must have left a hundred messages by now, but I care… about you. No matter what this is, or what we are or… aren’t. Please let me know you’re alright… I-” there was a long pause, and Steve found he was holding his breath.

The call cut off.

“Final message,” the robotic voice interjected.

“It’s me.” Blaine sounded strange this time, rough and uneven. “I miss you.”

Steve let go of the breath trapped in his lungs, fists clutching at the bedspread beneath him.

“Call Blaine Anderson,” he insisted loudly.

“Calling,” the system told him.

The crackle as the phone picked up gave way to a rush of sound, and Steve felt his body unwind and his fists unclench as a voice came over the speaker. 

“H-hello?”

“Blaine?” Steve called out, unsure of which way to turn to talk.

“Steve?!” Blaine cried. “Oh thank god, are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Steve said evenly, ignoring his racing pulse. “I was in recovery. I couldn’t make any calls, I didn’t have my phone-”

“It’s okay, it’s alright,” Blaine cut him off in a rush. “But you’re alright?”

“I’m still recovering,” he admitted carefully. “I just got your messages.”

The room was quiet for a moment.

“I’m so sorry about those, I guess I panicked,” Blaine said, his voice soft and sheepish.

Steve let out a gentle, inaudible laugh. “No, it’s- it was nice.”

Blaine didn’t reply, and in the long pause, Steve could feel the heat flare and stick in his throat. He’d spent the last two years drowning in the ache of missing everything and everyone, he’d never imagined what it was like to be missed.

“Can I… see you, a-are you home?” Blaine asked.

“I am but I’m not really, uh,” Steve swallowed against his dry throat, “I’m not at my best right now.”

“I don’t care,” Blaine said instantly. “I mean, I pulled shrapnel out of your shoulder, remember?”

Steve closed his eyes, but the darkness remained the same. “I’ll be back to normal soon. We can go… see a movie.”

“Steve.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I can handle it, on my own.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Blaine answered gently. “We both know you can handle pretty much anything. What I’m saying,” he stopped to take a slow, deliberate breath. “What I’m saying is - and you might not know this, because this is new. _We’re_ new. I mean, from what you’ve told me, from what I’ve seen - I know you can handle this on your own, whatever it is.”

Steve’s fingers flexed at his sides, desperate for something tangible to hold.

“But you need to know that you don’t _have to_ anymore.”

“I’m blind,” Steve said flatly, like it was the only answer he could give.

There was a short pause before he heard the voice all around him one more time.

“I’m coming.”

*

He was waiting by the door, leaning against the wall and feeling the different textures in the plaster and paint with his fingertips, when Blaine knocked.

The doorknob was cold in his palm, and he was surprised he found it so quickly. He was trying to gauge by sound where Blaine was before he could politely push the door closed behind him, but long fingers circled around his wrist, and the door slipped away from him ( _ker-thunk_ ) before he had the chance.

“Hi,” he breathed, and the rush came at last; the radiating warmth and the smell of Blaine’s shampoo mixed with fading hints of his cologne, the sudden awareness of a whole and _complete_ person in his arms, pressed against his chest and down his body.

But then it was gone.

“Hey,” Blaine said as he stepped back from the embrace.

_Don’t let go. Wait._

But then Blaine was pieces, like everybody else. Just a voice and a hand on his own.

Steve swallowed down his private protest and let Blaine lead him over to his chair by the window. He sat carefully, trying not to let the frustration show on his face every time a guiding hand touched him and let go again just as quickly.

“What is it?” Blaine asked softly. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s hard to explain.” He didn’t know why he was whispering, but couldn’t stop. The rest of his voice stayed locked in his chest, trapped under something thick and hot and unpleasant.

Blaine's fingers were surprisingly cool against his warm skin, brushing over his cheekbones down to his jaw. He knew even without his sight that Blaine was looking at the scars around his eyes. 

“It’s temporary, just another week or two and it’ll heal. It doesn’t hurt,” he insisted, quietly revelling in the touch.

“You wouldn’t tell me if it did,” Blaine said, amused.

Steve bowed his head, too caught up in the hands stroking softly through his hair to form a reply.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Blaine told him.

“I have a nurse,” Steve managed to say, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “She stays through the day.”

“And at night?”

“I’m blind, not crippled,” he protested.

“Exactly,” Blaine said. Steve felt something brush the inside of his knee and realised Blaine was standing between his legs in front of the chair. “Sweetheart, you’re _blind_.”

Steve froze to the spot, hands lifting and falling in an aborted motion, wanting to find and hold on to Blaine, and not let go. 

“Did… did you just call me sweetheart?”

“Oh.” Blaine seemed to recoil, but Steve’s reflexes were just as fast as they’d always been, and he caught him at the waist before he could move too far away.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine said. “It just slipped out.”

“No, it’s - there’s nothing wrong. I’ve just… never been anybody’s sweetheart before,” Steve admitted.

There was no answer.

 _Maybe it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore,_ he thought.

His breath caught in his throat as Blaine’s fingers brushed over his face again, cupping his jaw, thumbing along both cheekbones with gentle intent.

Steve wet his lips, reminding himself that Blaine was the one under his hands, between his knees, standing in front of him. _His_ Blaine, and all of him - not just the fragments he could hear and feel. 

“Are you going to kiss me?”

“I was thinking about it, yeah,” Blaine said with a soft chuckle.

When he spread his hands out over Blaine’s sides and squeezed, Steve felt his skin prickle at the tiny, needy sound Blaine let out; so quiet he wouldn’t have caught it if he wasn’t so close. 

The kiss was so soft at first it was barely there; just a brush of lips and Blaine’s hands, still clinging to the sides of his face. Their foreheads were pressed together, and the sound of their breathing was the only noise left on the air. 

“Steve, what is it?”

“I…” he tried to get the words past the whisper, past the hard thing that had settled in his throat and kept the rest of his voice inside. “I need to… feel. People are just pieces. Voices. A hand or… an arm or…”

Blaine swallowed thickly, and placed a gentle kiss on Steve’s temple at the same time Steve pressed his lips to Blaine’s palm.

It was the first time Steve had ever told anyone he needed anything. He didn’t understand why it felt like a bullet wound.

“I’m here,” Blaine said. “Steve, I’m here. I’m not just pieces…”

Another absent squeeze at Blaine’s narrow waist, so small and warm under the spread of his hands, and the second kiss was suddenly very real and hard, crushing their mouths together, punctuated by broken, desperate sounds as Blaine’s body bowed into his and Steve’s arms wrapped greedily around it.

“Stay,” he managed to get out between the rushed and frantic kisses that followed. “Please-” another kiss “-stay.”

Blaine met his mouth again, slowly this time, drawing the kiss out long and deep before he settled his weight in Steve’s lap.

“I will,” Blaine promised, stroking comfortingly over Steve’s shoulders, caught up and content in the long arms that clung so desperately to his small frame.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

.

_~ FIN Part 1  ~_


End file.
